


Half The Reason

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, F/F, FemTrope Bingo, Femslash February, Femslash February Trope Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 16:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3297494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Your girlfriend’s in holding cell C.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half The Reason

**Author's Note:**

> For my femtrope bingo card, the cop/detective au square
> 
> Special shout out of thanks to Rachelle for title help, and Alessandra for help picking what ship to go with this!

“Your girlfriend’s in holding cell C.”

Months ago those words would have been familiar ones, but now they made her stop in her tracks and look at John with what she hoped was an expression that read ‘ _are you fucking with me.’_

When his exceptionally annoying shit eating grin doesn’t fade away, the answer became clear enough.

There was only one person he could be talking about.

When she lets out a near groan, his grin only gets larger and that confirms it beyond any shread of a doubt.

It was clearly not the girl that Victoria had hooked up with the night before - a pretty blonde from the bar whose name she only _vaguely_ recalled as being something with an _s_ \- but rather an unforgettable person that she would recognize in an instant.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Victoria says briskly, resisting the urge to add the obligatory _not anymore._

There’s a little underhanded laugh had at her expense, “of course not,” and she greatly resists the urge to flip him off - only holding off because because this is technically a _professional_ setting - before heading down towards where the holding cells are.

When Victoria reaches the holding cell, the woman on the other side of the bars gives her a familiar smile that used to make her whole world light up, but now it just leaves Victoria with a frown on her face.

“Isabelle Hartley.”

“Hey, Tori,” she replies back easily, lacking any sense of professionalism, “you’re looking good.”

“You look different,” Victoria replies in turn.

Her hair is shorter now than it was before. A dark bob that frames her face and makes her look older, replaces the long waves she used to have before. The jacket she’s wearing is an unfamiliar one, but she catches a familiar glimmer of silver around Isabelle’s neck. There’s a cut on her cheek, from whatever scuffle landed her behind these bars once again, but other than that she looks in decent enough shape.

“So, you’re back in town,” Victoria asks, once she’s finished appraising the other woman.

“Obviously,” Isabelle says, her lips curling up into a that same grin as she gestures around the holding cell.

“What’d you do this time?”

“I take it you didn’t read the report,” Isabelle fires back just as quickly.

No, she hadn’t.

She probably ought to have, instead of rising to John’s bait in regards to her ex, but it was too late now and here they were in a far too familiar position.

Victoria wasn’t sure if she could even count the amount of times she had been called in to see Isabelle arrested yet again.

Isabelle would normally have walked away like it was nothing, insisting that all of this was _just business_ and insist that nothing could be pinned on her team, the rowdy group of bounty hunters that were anything but actually what they claimed to be. And then she would swing by Victoria’s place, once her shift was over, claiming that it had really been some big misunderstanding, before they fucked like their lives depended on it.

They were good times, but times like that had been gone for quite a while.

“One of your boys on their way with bail,” Victoria asks, though it’s hardly a question when she already knows the answer.

“Hunter said he’d be here around noon,” she admits, “said he missed you, and wanted to come by and say hey _,_ but also wanted to give us some time to _talk._ ”

“I see,” Victoria replies dryly.

“You know, he’s not the only one that missed you.”

“Don’t start-“

“I missed you too,” Isabelle ignores her and finishes her sentence, “it’s been a while, Tori.”

“Four months, since you last skipped town,” Victoria agrees, because _a while_ barely even begins to cover it, “without any explanation, might I add.”

“We got a job last minute, you know how things are Tori.”

She does, of course she does.

“Four months.”

If Isabelle notices any bitterness in her tone, she doesn’t mention it, casually continuing where she left off. “Leaving like that, well, it was half the reason I took another job back around here. I let myself get arrested and everything, just to see you again.”

She snorts at the _let_ , her own personal joke.

And Victoria tries not to look so amused in return.

“Look at that. You _can_ smile,” Isabelle replies, clearly catching her expression.

“What was the other half?”

“What?”

“The other half of the reason you took the job,” Victoria prompts.

“Oh that.”

“Yes _that_.”

She doesn’t expect an answer, not really.

Certainly a part of her hopes for some easy answer to make her job a little bit easier, but the reality is never that simple - not when Isabelle is involve.

The problem is that Isabelle has never been the type to volunteer information about whoever she was working for at any given moment.

This all is due to her rather skewed concept of loyalty which ranks as following: her team, whoever’s paying her on any given day, and _then_ Victoria.

It’s one of the many reasons they had fought so often back when they had been together.

So, she’s not surprised in the slightest when the next thing out of the other woman’s lips is not an answer, but rather a question of her own. “What time do you get off?”

For about twenty seconds Victoria contemplates not answering her. She tells herself that is time she won’t give in like she always has before, but there’s something about Isabelle that draws her back in time and time again, even when they both know that this is a terrible idea.

“Nine,” she says, already turning away from the holding cell, but not before calling, “don’t be late” over her shoulder.

She’s nearly out of earshot, so she can’t be entirely sure, but for a second she thinks she hears Isabelle’s ironic reply of “I’m never late.”

“No, of course not. Four months isn’t late at all.”

 


End file.
